There are many potential laser applications which are presently being limited from development or use because of the unavailability of sufficiently high power laser systems or because the energy required to excite the lasers is of such high levels. Some of these applications include the use of laser beams for producing fusion, for laser communication systems, for energy extraction from neutron sources, for certain weapon-type uses, or the like.
Proposals have been made to utilize the potentially high energy available in fission reactors to excite a lasing medium to cause population inversions which may produce laser energy. These proposals were based on the total energy which is inherently available in a fission reactor and the potentially small relative size a reactor may have and still be capable of producing this energy. Attempts to achieve laser excitation from fission reactors, however, have not been successful as no reliable measurable laser gain or laser action has been previously reported.